The invention relates to a solvent required to separate sour gas components from technical gases and suited for a scrubbing process which is performed to remove sour gas components from a technical gas bearing impurities, with the aid of a liquid, the said liquid being subsequently regenerated and recycled in a closed loop.
A large number of separation methods are known in order to remove sour gas components from technical gases with the aid of solvents. A clear distinction is drawn between physically acting solvents and chemically acting solvents. Chemically acting scrubbing agents are capable of efficiently removing sour gas components at high loads, even at low to medium sour gas partial pressures (e.g. 0.1 to 2 bar). Higher sour gas partial pressures (e.g. >2 bars) permit the use of physically acting solvents at a higher sour gas content of the solvent, such that the physically acting solvent has a real benefit under these conditions.
The state-of-the-art removal of sour gas components from technical gases with the aid of chemically acting solvents is constituted, for example, by the MDEA scrubbing process which uses, for example, a solvent with a 50% by wt. solution of methyldiethanol amine and water for sour gas removal. This amine concentration is in line with the present state of technology, the concentration best suited for the removal of large sour gas quantities. The physically acting solvents known for this application are, e.g. Selexol, Morphysorb, Rectisol, etc.
The objective of the invention is to provide an improved solvent that combines the advantages of the chemically and physically acting absorbents and that permits particularly high loads.